A template to use when requesting permission to use third party content within OER.

1. Copyright Permission Template Email/Letter
Dear Sirs,
We write to you in connection with:
(Insert the details of what you want to use. It could just be a url or it could be figure details from a book for
example.)
We are seeking confirmation that you are the owner of the copyright in this image. If you are not the owner or the
exclusive licensee, we would be extremely grateful for further details identifying the correct contact.
At present, the Higher Education Academy Engineering Subject Centre is involved in an Open Education
Resources (OER) pilot project, funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). We will
be releasing a selection of teaching materials under Creative Commons licences for reuse and adaptation by the
general public.
OER's have been defined by the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation as ‘teaching, learning and research
resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that
permits their free use or re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course
materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials or techniques
used to support access to knowledge'.
The goal of the programme is to make a wide range of learning resources created by academics freely available,
easily discovered and routinely re-used by both educators and learners. Projects are expected to make a
significant amount of existing learning resources freely available online, licensed in such away to enable them to
be used and repurposed worldwide. As a result of this project first class educational resources will become
available to those who would not ordinarily have access to. Similar projects across the world include
OpenCourseWare (OWC) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, and Open Learn from the
Open University in the UK.
(Please see http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/learning/opencontent for information on the project as a whole
and http://www.engsc.ac.uk/an/oer-project/oer-project.asp for the Engineering Subject Centre's project.)
The image mentioned above has been identified as a key illustration to be included in a PowerPoint
presentation that accompanies a 'XXXXXXXXXXXXXX' lecture being provided by XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX as a
part of a XXX (Hons/BSc/ BEng etc) in XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. The resource will be formatted and released
using a variety of differing media but focusing specifically on Web2.0 technologies such as YouTube, Slideshare
and will also be deposited in JorumOPEN (see http://www.jorum.ac.uk/deposit/ for details).

2. All resources included within this project will be released under a 'Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK; England
& Wales' licence (see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/) as this licence is the most suitable for the
project.
We would therefore be extremely grateful for your permission to release the materials described above, along
with the rest of the learning resource, under a 'Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK; England & Wales' licence.
The source of the image will be fully identified and accredited under the terms of the Creative Commons licence.
Please indicate how you would like this acknowledgement to appear.
Of course if you have any concerns over the use of the image or any questions relating to OER in general we will
be more than happy to assist you.
We hope you will embrace this project with open arms and provide an important valued contribution to this
project.
Kindest regards,
Credits
This resource was created by the Engineering Subject Centre and released as an open
educational resource through the Open Engineering Resources project of the HE Academy
Engineering Subject Centre. The Open Engineering Resources project was funded by HEFCE
and part of the JISC/HE Academy UKOER programme.
© Loughborough University 2009
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.

3. The name of Loughborough University and the logo are the name and registered marks of Loughborough
University. To the fullest extent permitted by law Loughborough University reserves all its rights in its name and
marks which may not be used except with its written permission.
The JISC logo is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative
Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence. All reproductions must comply with the terms of that licence.
The HEA logo is owned by the Higher Education Academy Limited may be freely distributed and copied for
educational purposes only, provided that appropriate acknowledgement is given to the Higher Education
Academy as the copyright holder and original publisher.